How Shuffleboard came around.

02/05/12

The original English ancestor of most of the games involving shoving discs of some sort on a table was called Shove-board and later Shovel-board. Popular in Tudor times, Shovelboard was played by the English upper classes on enormous narrow tables as long as 30 feet (9 metres). Players shoved metal weights down the tables, attempting to get them as near to the other end of the table without falling off. Presumably, the game is a formalised version of a pastime played on the long dining tables of the upper classes after dinner. One of the earliest references is from the Royal Privy Expenses of 1532 which show that Henry VIII lost £9 to Lord William at Shovelboard. Meanwhile, the subjects of this great King were banned from playing this and most other recreational games - an even earlier reference purportedly of 1522 says "None of the society shall play at the game called Shoffe boorde or Slypgrote".

By the 1800's Shovelboard had been abandoned by the aristocracy and nowadays, Shovelboard tables are confined to museums in England but it's direct descendant Shove Ha'penny still thrives and major derivatives also developed in Europe and in America.

The old game was revived in a deck form in the 1870s when it began to be played by the rich on the decks of ocean liners. US immigrants, who presumably enjoyed Deck Shuffleboard on the trip to the "new continent", continued to play it on the ground upon reaching their destination. This new game of Outdoor Shuffleboard, became quite popular in early 1900's and numerous advocates still play today. Large disks are pushed using special "cues" which are effectively long sticks with a curved T-piece at one end. The target is a triangular area at the opposite end with sections that score differently. It's a unique game.

It's sister game, however, is just as popular although originating from the less sulubrious surrounds of the amusement arcades. Indoor Shuffleboard or Table Shuffleboard is the modern descendant of Shove-board that most resembles it's forbear. In it, disks are pushed down a table that can be more than 10 feet long with the objective of causing them to stop between target areas that span the width of the board at the other end. The target areas at the end of the board score the most but disks that go off the end don't score at all, of course. A variety of games have been devised for the Shuffleboard table and this table game is today reasonably common in American bars.

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